Torchwood. Children of the Earth. There are spoilers in my rant, so don't read if you haven't watched it and want to.
First. With only ten percent of us (humans) as wealthy, there would be far more than enough children in the poor schools to fill the ten percent of all children quota -- or at lease not-rich children. HOWEVER, the collection of said children would not be nearly so easy as this show seems to believe. Even the hint of the real story leaking out and parents would be up in arms. All parents, I think. And I think it would be hard to keep it secret.
I know I'm not in the rich successful class, but I know some people there. No one in government right now, but still I would assume my richer friends would fight for my children like I know I would fight for theirs. I also know some very poor people, people taking advantage of government subsidies (though the news suggests they may not know that's where their money comes from). And you know what? I'd fight for their children too. I don't think even my childless friends would stand by and watch while the government took ten percent of the children away even if my children were lucky enough to be missed.
Now, the next bit is collecting the children. They send troop transports out with soldiers and buses to collect them from schools (having lured them back to schools for supposed innoculations to make them impervious to the alien takeover oddity that has been happening.) Alright. Then the soldiers showed up. Do you think there would be more soldiers or more parents? How fast do you think it would hit the news that soldiers were collecting children from schools? No matter how many soldiers they send, doesn't it seem likely there would be more parents? Normal people outnumber soldiers. They sort of have to because soldiers come from the normal people.
Also. The military doesn't pay so well as to put the military into those top ranked schools. If they're exempting the military children, they have to figure out how to tell them apart from all the other children. Keep them home? Don't think that will be noticed? Don't think the military is going to tell someone? A brother, sister, friend? At least here in the US, a lot of the military comes from poor families. Rich people don't need to sign up to die for the rest of us, and seldom do so there goes the school collection altogether.
Then we'll move directly to the point where the military go collecting children from people's homes, because they didn't send them to school. It was just too ridiculous to be believed. Right. There's a time limit. You need ten percent of the children to keep these aliens from annihilating the earth and you're going to send soldiers house to house in the poor areas rather than collecting those last few from the rich kid schools where they're all gathered together in convenient little bunches? How many thousand do you think you're going to pick up like this, and how fast?
Then there's the shipping them off to the pick up point. Collecting would have needed to start a few days before the deadline for this to even have a chance of working. Day of? How many collection points are there? And if there are enough collection points to make it reasonable, why didn't the aliens just reach out and grab the children in the beginning rather than making us collect them up?
And at least in America we have guns, and I can tell you -- there aren't a lot of things I'd get into a gunfight with soldiers about (losing proposition there for the most part and just stupid), but if they start taking my babies away or my friends babies, I would have to rethink that. There are things worth dying for and let me tell you, handing my children over to aliens would have to hit the top of that list. And Great Britain may be able to cross the country in a day for these alien collection points, but in the US? Russia? Half a dozen other large countries?
I guess the most frustrating thing is that I'm used to liking this show. I like the passion behind it. The science fiction. The odd stuff. But this year (last year, for the UK) they decided they wanted to hit us where it hurt - in the children. They wanted to tug our heartstrings and try to pull out tears -- and if it didn't make sense, then f@#$ it, they'd do it anyway. There's only so much disbelief I can suspend people!
That the government would decide to sacrifice the poor people's children to save their own? OK, yes, I'm still with you. That the military would be united and strong enough to make it work? Anywhere? I live in small city, Florida. How many military do we have? Well, there is a reservist base in the NE with a few hundred members. In a city of thousands. Even if they did decide to hide their children by grabbing others, they wouldn't be enough. And the military would have to mobilize to the big cities like New York, Miami, Washington D.C. It's just not practical. Better to mobilize for war with the aliens and not sell our souls.
I really wanted to like this show. Now, I don't think I even care if it's coming back next year.
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